Silver Bullet (14 page)

“Hello, gorgeous,” he said to Suzy, giving me a conspiratorial wink. At least, I think it was meant to be a wink. With his eye patch, it could have just as easily been an unusually lascivious blink. “You are a sight for my sore eye. Even if you have, you know, sore eyes. But the bruises are a fetching look on you, trust me!”

It was hard to tell if Suzy was smiling or scowling through the puffy face.

“What is this?” I asked, gesturing at the dig site.

“An excavation!” Malcolm said. “What else do you think it could be?”

“Looks like we got those nuclear bombs we ordered,” I said. “I take it the daimarachnid nest has been emptied.”

“Thoroughly squashed. Make sure to let me know if you want any souvenirs before we send everything to the incinerator!”

Souvenirs? Yikes. “I think I’m good. I do need access to the human bodies that were in the nest, though.”

“We haven’t pulled those out yet. Go down, help yourself. Look for a husky lad named Gary Zettel. He’s commander of the unit handling the more delicate digging down there.”

As soon as Malcolm headed for the tents, Suzy rounded on me. “Are you planning to just stand by and allow him to talk to me like that?”

“Who’s talking to you like what?”

“Malcolm. He’s sexually harassing me. I could get him fired.”

I’d never heard Suzy complain about harassment before. Most of the time, our coworkers regarded her like one of the guys, but it wasn’t weird to catch a new hire trying to hit on her. Suzy deflected it all with aplomb.

“But he’s harmless,” I protested.

“It’s not harmless to treat female coworkers like sex objects.”

“So why am I supposed to be calling him out on it?” I asked. “If you don’t like it, tell him to stop.”

“That’s not the point.”

I wondered if I needed to check her temperature. She wasn’t acting like herself. “You’ve never taken it personally before.”

“Just because I behave in a certain way to navigate a hostile professional atmosphere doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. Do you think I
like
being constantly objectified by my peers? Do you think I enjoy pretending to have fun when everyone’s being a giant dick?”

I had a feeling that this was a trick question. “Yes?”

Suzy snorted. “Forget about it.”

“Happily. Now let’s go grab Yvette.” It would have been much easier to take Isobel down into the mine to talk with the bodies, but Malcolm and Bellamy were the only ones who knew she was there. We’d had to leave Isobel in the SUV parked on the hill a half-mile away.

I headed for a ladder down into the mine and Suzy followed.

“How are we going to get a body out of the mine without raising suspicion?” she asked.

“It won’t be a problem,” I lied.

I’d figure it out once we got down there.

I found the Union unit digging near the place that Yvette’s cocoon had been discovered. There were five people working there, all of them stripped down to black tank tops and slacks. Four had shovels and pickaxes. The remaining woman—a stocky redhead with a square, frowning face—was working a jackhammer.

My eyes skimmed past them in search of Yvette. Both cocoons had been moved onto tarpaulins and covered in sheets. I was glad to not have to see the mangled body again. I’d gotten more up close and person with a daimarachnid’s mouth parts than I wanted to, and it was way too easy to imagine having that kind of damage inflicted on me.

“Well?” Suzy asked. “What now?”

I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t have any brilliant ideas.

Hell, maybe I’d just walk out with it. As far as anyone knew, I had orders to recover the body. The OPA and the Union didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye on procedure, and we definitely didn’t share our methods across the departments. So long as I looked like I knew what I was doing, nobody would stop me.

Probably.

Not much of a plan, but I wasn’t working under ideal conditions.

“Wait here,” I said with confidence I didn’t feel.

I walked toward Yvette’s body.

One of the Union guys stepped in my way. He was one of the stockiest men I’d ever seen. He barely came up to my chest, but was twice as broad as I was. His neck and chin formed a solid block on top of his shoulders. His tank showed off arms that bulged with veins. “Gary Zettel,” he said, offering a gloved hand to me.

I shook it. He had a crushingly strong grip. The break-your-knuckles kind that some men like to use, as if they’re crushing everyone they meet into submission.

“Kopis?” I asked.

“Yes. I’m the commander of this Union unit.” Zettel gave me an appraising look. “Witch? Magical Violations?”

“Yep,” I said.
More or less.

“You’re the one that found this site. You did good work eliminating the initial assault of daimarachnids.”

That was probably meant to be a compliment, and a rare one at that. Zettel didn’t look like the kind of guy that did the friendly thing very easily. “I can’t lay claim to most of that, unfortunately. Malcolm Gallagher destroyed most of the nest.”

Zettel’s expression went cold at the mention of the other kopis. “I see. What do you need?”

“Yvette.” Wait, was I supposed to know her name? That probably hadn’t made its way through official channels yet. I coughed into my fist. “I need to transport the bodies to the helicopter so that they can be examined at the Los Angeles field office.”

The commander extended his hand toward me palm-up, as if waiting for me to give him something.

I stared at him.

After a moment, he prompted me. “Orders?”

“For transporting victims?”

“Yes,” Zettel said in a barely-patient voice. “Let me see your orders.”

“The OPA doesn’t issue ‘orders’ when clearing a scene,” I said, which was true. At least that was one thing I didn’t have to lie about.

“The Union does, and this falls under Union jurisdiction.”

“I found the nest,” I said. “It’s the OPA’s.”

“We cleared it, so this is ours,” Zettel said firmly. I was starting to get why the local cops always got pissed off when I came through one of their scenes flashing a federal badge. “I’ve already requested help from a Union forensics team. They should be here in an hour. If the OPA wants access to the bodies, you’ll have to submit a request.” His eyes narrowed at me. “Or you can bring me orders issued through Union channels before forensics arrive.”

Yeah, because
that
was going to happen.

Fuckity fuck.

Gary kept that withering gaze locked onto me, and I started to back away despite myself. I’d never done well at the dick-measuring contests. “I’ll get back to you.”

He turned back to digging at the webbing, lifting his pickaxe over his shoulder and bringing it down on the rock with a sharp
clink
. He totally ignored me. It was like I’d never been there at all.

Suzy was still standing at the entrance of the tunnel with a bemused expression. “You don’t have the body.”

No shit.
“I think Gary doesn’t like me.”

“Then what’s the plan?”

Why did everyone expect me to have a plan all of a sudden? I wasn’t a planning guy.

But I thought back to what Malcolm had told me about teams. How you only ever needed two people to accomplish a mission, and they didn’t need to be kopis and aspis. It was all about positioning. “Distract Gary Zettel,” I said. “The chunky guy with the pickaxe. Get his attention. Actually, get the attention of the entire unit.”

Suzy looked skeptical. “And you’ll just walk out with Yvette? I’m not
that
distracting.”

“You’re good at making people like you,” I said. “Work your magic, Agent Takeuchi.”

The corner of her lips quirked at the formal name. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Her whole posture changed. She sauntered over to the unit with a disarming grin glowing from her features. It was the look of the woman who used to toss back shots with Union kopides at our (former) favorite bar, The Olive Pit. A woman that could hold her own against any man that worked for the OPA.

Not gonna lie. The fact that she could change gears that easily kinda freaked me out. What was the pretense—the serious, professional look, or the casual affectation?

Didn’t matter. When Suzy talked, everyone listened. One by one, they turned to look at her—Gary Zettel and his crazy salami-arms and the redheaded woman with the jackhammer, even the skinnier woman in back with a cell phone that reminded me of a female Fritz.

Man, I missed Fritz. Or at least, I missed his brain.

And the fact that his presence would have meant I wasn’t in danger of getting shot by the vice president of the OPA.

Moving on.

I didn’t stop to listen to Suzy. I sidled over to the bodies against the crumbling wall, eyes on the Union unit, making sure that they were all fixated on Suzy.

Guessing by her hand gestures, she was pantomiming shooting up the daimarachnids.

Slipping my arms under Yvette, I lifted her tarp-wrapped body from the floor. I tossed her over my shoulder. Then I took her to Isobel.

I WAS SWEATING BY the time I dumped Yvette’s body at Isobel’s feet. It wasn’t real hot—even the desert became cool during winter—but I’d like to see
you
run with a hundred pounds of floppy dead weight over your shoulders for half a mile without feeling it.

The fact that I reached Isobel before Gary Zettel realized that one of the cocoons had gone missing was a small miracle. I arrived on top of the hill ready to collapse from a mixture of adrenaline and exhaustion.

“Took you long enough,” Isobel said, pacing alongside the SUV.

There was literally nothing in the entire world that she could have said to annoy me more than that. “Well, I’m real sorry, princess. Next time?
You’re
welcome to sneak into the Union dig site and drag the corpses around.”

Isobel didn’t even glance at me. “So here we are,” she said softly, nose wrinkled. The tarpaulin had fallen open. Yvette was grayer than I remembered and the bite wounds had shriveled.

“Is there something wrong with the body? Aside from the obvious.”

“No,” Isobel said. “It’s a normal body.” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “Okay. Guess I can do this. I just…usually, I don’t do anything during daylight. You know?”

I didn’t know.

I glanced up at the sky. It was morning, a few hours from midday, and still a safe distance from the midnight deadline. But not safe enough. “Does death magic take darkness?”

“It helps.”

We couldn’t wait until darkness. “Give it a try now.” She didn’t immediately move. Instead, she rubbed her palms on the thighs of her jeans. “What, you need animal skins and drums again?” I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice, and I didn’t bother trying.

Hurt flashed over Isobel’s features. “You know that they get in my head, don’t you? It’s not that they just speak to me. We share a mind for a few brief minutes, and it is…” She grimaced. “It’s agonizing, Cèsar. So forgive me if I’m not eager to jump in.”

That made me feel like a huge asshole. “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t know.” She shrugged stiffly. “All magic has a cost, one way or another. That cost usually comes in the form of a ritual or sacrifice or something. I think one day…this is going to cost me my sanity.”

I touched her elbow. She turned a heavy-lidded gaze up at me, and I realized her cheeks were damp again, streaked with mascara. She had been crying.

“Wish I could tell you that you don’t have to do this,” I said softly.

“You’re right. Fritz needs me.” She sucked in a breath, closed her eyes. “I just need to find the strength.”

Instinct made me take her hand. Her fingers curled around mine.

She stood over the body for another silent minute, as if gathering her thoughts. And then Isobel held her free hand over the body, palm-down.

“Yvette,” she said softly, eyes going unfocused. “Yvette, come here.”

Her magic hit me like it always did. It pulsed through my veins, made my head ache. But through my watering eyes and itching nose, I watched the ghost of a woman sit up from the body, showering murky white energy around her.

Within moments, Yvette’s ghost stood on top of the body, hairless and naked.

Her neck was glowing. I blinked, rubbed my eyes again. Didn’t change anything. Her tattoo was definitely glowing. Somehow, even though she hadn’t kept her hair or outfit, she’d managed to keep the bleeding apple imprinted on the side of her neck.

“How does that work?” I asked quietly, trying not to break Isobel out of her reverie.

When she responded, it was in her quiet, not-quite-there voice, and Yvette’s lips moved. The ghost was speaking through Isobel. “You mean this?” Yvette touched her neck where the giant tattoo burned like the sun. It blanched her features, making it impossible to see her face. “Swearing to the Apple is an oath of the soul. It’s permanent.”

I was surprised that Yvette knew what I was talking about, much less understood why her ghost would have a visible tattoo. She must have been a witch when she was alive. A powerful one.

Bet she was much higher than a three. Not that I was still bitter about that.

“The Apple?” I asked, focusing on the conversation. “What’s the Apple?”

“My chosen family,” Yvette said. “We are witches and men who have worshipped Adam since the dawn of humanity.”

“Adam. Do you mean the first man? Garden of Eden Adam?”

“Yes,” she said through Isobel.

That was kind of interesting, but it wasn’t anything relevant to my extremely urgent need to recover Fritz. I didn’t care if she was a cultist or a famous actress or a graduate of Barnum and Bailey’s Clown College. I just needed her to look alive.

I circled around Isobel and Yvette. The ghost was see-through. Too pale to pass for living.

“Can you boost her somehow? Make her look more…realistic?” I asked Isobel.

She clenched her hands into fists and let out a long, slow breath. Her brow furrowed with concentration. Yvette darkened fractionally until I couldn’t see the horizon through her waist anymore. She remained too pale, though.

Isobel kept concentrating, pushing, making the magic build. Tension rippled through her body.